Tabcorp chief executive David Attenborough issued a strong rebuke to Lottoland. “The Victorian lottery delivers over $400 million for the funding of hospitals, and over $100 million to venues, the newsagents and convenience stores that sell lottery tickets, and that’s what the lottery is about,” he said.
Gambling giant Tabcorp secured a major political victory on Thursday night when parliament approved landmark laws prohibiting its online competitors such as Lottoland from operating lottery-betting websites. When it comes into effect in six months, the national prohibition on sites that accept bets on lottery outcomes without requiring punters to buy a ticket in the draw will eliminate the threat posed by the fast-growing digital disrupter to traditional lottery providers, including Tabcorp-owned Tatts Group lotteries.
The passage of the bill is also being hailed as a win for hundreds of lottery-selling newsagents, who have been fighting an aggressive campaign against the Gibraltar-based Lottoland, arguing the popular website has been hurting their small businesses and eroding millions of dollars in state lottery taxes that would otherwise have helped pay for important community services and infrastructure.
“This will protect Australia from synthetic lotteries and will bring important new consumer protections by closing the loophole that lotto betting sites have been operating out of,” said Adam Joy, chief executive of the Australian Lottery and Newsagents Association. “We now call on all synthetic lottery operators to do the right thing by Australians and cease offering these products immediately.”
Lottoland has stirred controversy since its arrival in Australia, particularly through its provocative TV advertising, and is said to have amassed a customer base of more than 650,000 active users.
Lottoland’s chief executive in Australia, Luke Brill, issued a statement saying the company was “here to stay”.
He said the prohibition on lottery-betting would not take effect until 2019, and the company was “well-advanced in looking at other ways we can continue to deliver choice to the 700,000 Australians who have registered with us over the past two years”.
“It is a great pity that the Senate did not give due consideration of the unintended consequences the new laws will have,” he said, “not just on our customers, but on competition and innovation.”
The bill cleared the Senate on Thursday night with bipartisan support, despite independent senator David Leyonhjelm condemning the laws as a “shameful, protectionist measure” that would “lock out a new and innovative business”.
“We should not be closing down businesses, we should be encouraging them,” he said. “I condemn this bill.”
Another newsagents’ trade group, the Newsagents Association of NSW and ACT, had also voiced opposition to the bill, arguing it would cement Tabcorp’s monopoly of lotteries in Australia.
In a speech earlier this week, Tabcorp chief executive David Attenborough issued a strong rebuke to Lottoland.
“The Victorian lottery delivers over $400 million for the funding of hospitals, and over $100 million to venues, the newsagents and convenience stores that sell lottery tickets, and that’s what the lottery is about,” he said.
“The lottery is not there to make oodles of money for the operator, it’s there to drive returns to the community as well, but Lottoland paid zero tax and actually gave nothing back to the Victorian community at all.”
Investment banks are predicting the ban on so-called “synthetic” lottery websites will provide a significant boost for Tabcorp. Gaming analysts from UBS called the new legislation an “incremental positive”, given the danger of Tatts lottery sales facing “pressure from competing offshore lottery products”, while Morgan Stanley said the bill paved the way for “higher growth potential”.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/australia-outlaws-lottery-betting-websites-in-coup-for-tabcorp-20180629-p4zogr.html